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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Muslims in Canada


POPULATION
Muslims in Canada today number more than 750,000
According to the 2001 census the Canadian population consisted of 579, 600 Muslims, representing 2% of the Canadian population
If Muslim maintained the same growth rate as the last decade since the census, today Muslims in Canada number 753,480. (From 2001 to 2003, according to statistics from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, an estimated 132,600 Muslims immigrated to Canada. That’s a rise of 23 percent)
Ontario contains 61% of the entire Muslim population
5% of all Toronto population is Muslims, making Toronto the highest concentration of Muslims in any city in the US or Canada
There are 21 Federal ridings with 7% to 14% Muslim population which can emerge as a major electoral force
There are 21 Federal ridings with 7% to 14% Muslim population which can emerge as a major electoral force

-- Considering that most Canadians still favor immigration and considering immigrants becoming politically significant, it is likely that open immigration will continue
-- Since the September 11 terrorist attacks many Muslims have begun to look to Canada as an alternative to the United States, where they fear bias and harassment
-- This is especially true with international students who have come to Canada in much larger numbers since 9/11 while 35% less have chosen to go to the US
A BIT OF HISTORY

The first recorded Islamic presence in Canada was the 1871 census which found 13 Muslims among the population. The first Canadian Mosque was constructed in Edmonton in 1938, when there were only about 700 Muslims in the country. The famous translator of the Quran, Abdullah Yusuf Ali inaugurated the masjid during his tour of Canada while he was working on his translation
The years after World War II saw a swift increase in the Muslim population, in the 1981 census the population was still below a hundred thousand
MUSLIMS ARE YOUNGER

Muslims represent the youngest generation in Canada with a median age of 28.1 years. Compared to the Jewish and Roman Catholic populations whose median age is 41.5 and 37.8 years old, respectively. The median age for the total Canadian population is 37 years old. 3
LESS THAN 10% MUSLIMS ARE BORN CANADIANS

411,520 of the total Muslim population is 15 years and older. Among these, 91% are 1st generation Canadians, 7.7% are 2nd generation Canadians, and approximately 0.9% of Muslims are 3rd generation and over. Roughly 68% of Muslims in Canada have Canadian Citizenship.
-- Typical immigrant agenda will remain dominant along with the culture and politics of the old country
-- Special consideration will be needed to find room for the second generation
DIVERSITY WITHIN

The Muslim population consists of diverse visible minorities, where
37% is of South Asian decent,
21% of Arab decent,
14% is of West Indian decent, and the remaining
28% is made up of many other ethnicities such African, Chinese, etc.
Half of Muslims in Canada speak a non-official language at home. Compared to 0.32% that speaks both official languages at home.4

-- Cultural diversity may hamper intra-Muslim communication
-- Unity may become easier on the non-threatening models of networking and confederations
MARITAL STATUS

32% of Muslims in Canada have never been married,
59% are legally married and living together,
2.9% are separated but still legally married,
3.5% are divorced, and
2.9% are widowed. Also, there are 7, 540 Muslim couples that live as common law partners.
There are also 21,145 Muslims in Canada who are single parents.

MUSLIMS ARE HIGHLY EDUCATED

Canadian Muslims have excelled in acquiring a Master’s degree with slightly over 6% when compared with the three largest religious sects such as: Roman Catholics where only 2% hold a Master’s degree, 3.5% of individuals who stated they have no religion and the third largest religious sect in Canada being the United Church has 2.4% of it’s population holding a Master’s degree, however; 8.8% of the Jewish population in Canada hold a Master’s degree
30% Muslims (123,725) Muslims were attending school in 2001.
6,310 Muslims have a PhD degree

-- There are 1.5% of the Canadian Muslim population that have earned doctorates comparatively, 0.3% of Roman Catholics and 2% of Jewish population in Canada have earned doctorates.
-- Probably more Muslim PhDs in Canada than many Muslim countries.
-- 3.5% (14,520) of the Canadian Muslim have their major field of study in Humanities and related fields
-- 5.3% (21,640) have majored in social sciences and related fields
JOB MARKET: HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT

Muslims have the second highest unemployment rates in Canada with 14.4% of the population being unemployed, as compared to 7.4% national unemployment rate
The largest profession found in the Canadian Muslim population is sales and services at 27%; the second largest occupational field comprised of Muslims in Canada is the business, finance, and administrative occupations which is 16% of the population. 7

-- Is it because of the wrong skill set for the market?
-- Is it due to discrimination?
-- How does it compare with other new immigrant data? Further Research regarding Muslims in Canada
-- Income data
-- Religiosity surveys
-- Muslim interaction with other faith
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Abraham Lincoln mother was an Milinguen

.Moriscoes were Muslims who tried to save their lives by acting like Christians. It is historical fact that some Moriscos and many Arabs escaped to the New World with Columbus. The Milinguins were Moriscos, and Abraham Lincoln’s mother was an Milinguen...............
Rebuilding the Islamo-Christian civilization in Spain.....................................................

Spain is trying to fix things. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been working with the Saudis on the Alliance of Civilizations, some of which is based on the Iranian sponsorship of the Iranian Dialogue of Civilizations.
Mansur Escudero, a Spanish a convertedMuslim is leading a movement that is pushing for the right of Muslims to pray at the Cordoba Mosque Cathedral. Some Muslims were arrested when trying to pray. The fair Spanish judge said. “It doesn’t act to demerit or discredit the Catholic religion, but rather in favor of joint use.””.
One of the results of a week-long meeting was to forge “Muslims and European Values,” jointly sponsored by various Christian and Muslimgroups like the Brusells based European Council of Moroccan Ulemas and the Barcelona based Union of Islamic Cultural Centers.
The Morinoes were Jewish coverts who hid their faith and pretended to be Christians. TheMoriscoes were Muslims who tried to save their lives by acting like Christians. It is historical fact that some Moriscos and many Arabs escaped to the New World with Columbus. The Milinguins were Moriscos, and Abraham Lincoln’s mother was an Milinguen. The Panzone brothers were Syrian Arabs who captained two of the ships of Columbus. The Spanish Inquisition targeted both the Moriscos and the Morinos. The Moriscos were under threat of exile in 1502 and ultimately expelled from Spain by King Philip III in 1609. Muslimleaders seeking reconciliation and burying the past. They have asked Spain for token restitution and righting the wrong by allowing Spanish citizenship to the Muslim descendants of the Moriscos as an “apology and acknowledgement of mistakes”.
Muslim Spain was the heart of tolerance and inter-faith acceptance from 711 to 1492. For five centuries this was lost in the aftermath of the Muslim holocaust in Spain. Today the seeds of that tolerance are once again germinating and the dividends are beyond imagination. Spain is turning out to be cone of the most tolerant countries with respect to Spain. During the 15th century’s Spanish Inquisition Muslims and Jews were all expelled from Spain. The Spaniards are now taking great pains to make amends. This augurs well for the Christian Muslim relations in general and Spanish-Muslim relations in particular. Using Saudi money, the current Socialists Government of Spain is rebuilding “It doesn’t act to demerit or discredit the Catholic religion, but rather in favor of joint use.”
Noureddine Ziani, a Moroccan imam has been assisting the Muslims and the Spaniard come together–putting forth the age old Andalusian notion of tolerance which accepted Islamic values as European values. Dr. Bulliet of Princeton in a seminal book had developed the notion of the Judeao-Christian Civilization and Ziani seems to be pushing for the “Judeo-Christian” Civilization.
Recently Muslims were arrested while attempting to pray in the Córdoba Cathederal which used to be a mosque. A Spanish judge recently ruled that the request to pray was not a hostile act. The Muslims simply want to be granted permission to prey in the Cathedral.
Spain had banned Mosques, and bulldozed all of them. Now it is making amends in strides and allowing the Muslims to rebuild their places of worship. Such magnanimity is contagious and has won the hearts and minds of Muslims in Spain the world over.
Muslims of the city of Barcelona, (home of Gaudy and known to many as the European heartland of anti-clerical postmodernism”) are building a mosque with a capacity for thousands of Muslimworshipers–”common values between Islam and Europe”.
Saudi Arabia is helping the Spaniards build the “great mosques” in the Spanish cities of Marbella, Malaga and Fuengirola.
Building on the theme of Interfaith toleration the Muslims are working with the local Christians to help them understand the trauma of the Spanish Inquisition. “We were expelled [from Spain] as Moriscos in 1609, really not that long ago. … The echo of Al-Andalus still resonates in all the valley of the Ebro [ie Spain]. We are back to stay, Insha’Allah [if Allah wills it].”
The Basque city of Bilbao were is building a 650 square meter $725,000 mosque.
The 130,000 square feet Barcelona mosque would be that city’s and the Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid is one of the biggest mosques in Europe.
Another mosque in a small town of Lldieda funded by the King of Morocco King Mohammad VI. the Mosque has faced no opposition from the locals, and its 29000 Muslims make up 20% of the population live in harmony with the other Spaniards.
Zaragoza is the fifth-largest city in Spain. The 22,000-strong Islamic community is in the process of building a bigger mosque more commensurate with its needs.
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End of Muslim Spain


http://www.yaserbirjas.net/2009/10/26/the-odyssey-of-a-forgotten-nation-the-moriscos-of-spain-pt-1/

http://historyofandalus.wordpress.com/

The Odyssey of a Forgotten Nation, The Moriscos of Spain (Pt 1)
Four hundred years ago, on precisely October 2nd, of the year 1609 CE., in the Iberian peninsula, the Spanish fleet escorted a diverse array of ships of many European nations from the port of Denia on the southeastern coast of modern day Valencia, in Spain, in a land that was once known as al-Andalus. The fleet’s destination was multiple landing ports in predominantly Muslim North African shores. It was the first shipment of deported Spanish Muslims who lived there for over a hundred and twenty years after the fall of Muslim Spain in Granada back in 1492 CE. These Muslims were known in history by their Spanish title the “Moriscos”, whose ancestors lived and ruled in al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal) for more than 800 years, creating one of the greatest and most exquisite civilizations Europe had ever seen.

The ships were brought from all over Europe and carried that day, according to Spanish documents, around 5,300 Morriscos. They embarked on September 30th, and remained in transit until they set off on October 2nd, and after a rough trip, they arrived at the Spanish fortified military settlement in Oran (modern day Wahran in Algeria) on October 5, 1609.

This first shipment was the beginning of five years of systematic expulsion of a whole ethnical population, or nation, that varied in number according to different records from 250,000 to over a million. For over five years the Moriscos were expelled forcibly from a land they once called home, and the only home they had ever known. The reason for their expulsion was that they were perceived by the Spanish monarchy, who became the new rulers of the land, as different. It was a sad and brutal reality, a human genocide and a systematic ethnical cleansing the like of which Europe had never experienced before. It was the end of an episode in “The Odyssey of a Forgotten Nation, The Morriscos of Spain.” And this is their story.

Their odyssey started on the day when Abu Abdillah as-Saghir (Boabdil in European resources), the last governor of the last Muslim kingdom in al-Andalus, signed the capitulation of Granada in November 25, 1491 CE. and then submitted the keys of his kingdom to Ferdinand and Isabel, king and queen of Aragon and Castile, in January 2nd, 1492. The treaty was suppose to guarantee a set of rights to the Muslim inhabitants of the surrendered city, known back then as the moors; rights including religious tolerance and fair treatment in return for their unconditional surrender and submission.
The treaty contained many articles among which were the following:

•That all people should be perfectly secure in their persons, families, and properties.
•That they should be allowed to continue in their dwellings and residences, whether in the city, the suburbs, or any other part of the country.
•That their laws should be preserved as they were before, and that no-one should judge them except by those same laws.
•That their houses of worship (masajid), and the religious endowments (awqaaf) appertaining to them, should remain as they were in the times of Islam.
•That no Christian should enter the house of a Muslim, or insult him in any way.
•That all those who might choose to cross over to Africa should be allowed to take their departure within a certain time, and be conveyed in the king’s ships, and without any pecuniary tax being imposed on them, beyond the mere charge for passage.
•That the Christians who had embraced Islam should not be compelled to relinquish it and adopt their former creed.
•That no Christian should be allowed to peep over the wall, or into the house of a Muslim or enter a masjid (mosque).
•That any Muslim choosing to travel or reside among the Christians should be perfectly secure in his person and property.
•That no muadhin (one who calls for the prayers) should be interrupted in the act of calling the people to prayer, and no Muslim molested either in the performance of his daily devotions or in the observance of his fast, or in any other religious ceremony; but that if a Christian should be found laughing at them he should be punished for it.”
The treaty must have been perceived by the Christians of that time as very generous, and indeed it was, however and unfortunately, it did not last long enough for the ink even to dry. In less than ten years and before the end of the decade, signs of tension started to arise in Granada. The tolerant policy, both civil and religious, of the first administration assigned to run the newly conquered city, seemed to the more zealots Christian crowd not working at all, and therefore was replaced in 1498 with a new administration and a new strict policy.

Inquisitor general Archbishop Cisnero of Toledo arrives in Granada in 1499 with new confrontational and intolerant policies of change and forcible conversion. His policies were, to certain limit, backed by the desire of the monarchy to create and maintain a homogenous Spanish society in both politics through ensuring people’s loyalty to the Crown, and faith by adapting Catholicism as religion. There was no doubt a policy of that kind would have dangerous and detrimental consequences, and therefore it caused the first spark of the flame, and the atrocity began.
A case of murder and its aftermath in the year 1500, lead to street fight between the Muslims in Albaicin, the Muslim quarter of Granada, and the royal authority. After few days of rioting, the crisis was contained but the damage has already been done and it became permanent; it drew great suspicion and caused great mistrust between the two groups. The original treaty was now considered breached regardless of who caused it, and the new administration became free to impose any new terms it saw fit.

As a result of this new development, the forcible conversion to Catholicism was imposed on more than 50,000 souls of the inhabitants of Granada, which was one of the most detrimental punitive punishments Cisnero was able to first achieve in his career. The Muslims were subsequently forced into hiding, and thus began the period of Crypto- and clandestine practice of Islam. This period marked the beginning of the Moriscos era in the history of Spanish Muslims. Now that they are no longer Muslims, openly at least, the terms of the original capitulation of Granada could not be applied to them and a new treaty was introduced with much more demands from the newly converted to change and assimilate into the society.

The Muslims of Spain now were divided into three groups: the Mudejars, the Granadas and the Moriscos. The Mudejars were Muslims who lived under Christian rule, in some areas for over few centuries, in the land of Castile and Aragon and other territories retrieved earlier from the hands of the Muslims during the reconquista, prior to the fall of Granada. They spoke Castilian as their first language, they lived life similar to the life of the Muslims in the West today, they participated in the different aspects of life, and were considered loyal subjects to the crown. They enjoyed many privileges as citizens of the land and cities were they lived.

The Granadans were the original Muslims of the late kingdom of Granada, who spoke Arabic as their first language and who were not affected by the conversion followed the revolt of Albaicin. They came from different social classes and lived mainly in the former region of the kingdom of Granada. Then there were the Moriscos, the newly converted to Catholicism, but in many cases remained secretly faithful to their original religion al-Islam.
Not too long after that and in February of 1502, the forcible conversion became a state policy, and forced on all the Muslims, including the long privileged Mudajers, and the remaining Jews of Spain. Religious and civil authorities continued pursuing it throughout the century on different occasions, particularly following every revolt that took place until the last day of the expulsion.

Although the Moriscos were now considered Christians, officially at least, they have always been treated differently, particularly by the general public who always viewed them as rivals rather than fellow Christians. Even those Moriscos who tried hard to prove their good Christian character, they were never fully accepted by their fellow old Christians. In response to that attitude, the Moriscos became introversive and pushed further into clandestine lifestyle.

Despite the authorities’ effort to displace them, sending them deep into the Iberian peninsula and moving the old Christians to live amongst them, to ensure their complete merge into the society, the Moriscos continued preserving their unique identity.

The identity crisis of the Moriscos was obvious throughout their entire history. They were faced with few and limited options, the easiest of which was still troubling and dangerous for many. Their options were:

1) Hijra or immigration to the heartland of the Muslim world and particularly in North Africa. This option was an opened window, at least in the first few years following the fall of Granada and during the first period of the forcible conversion, or

2) Assimilation and completely dissolving into the Castilian, Catholic society. No doubt this was the optimal option preferred by the state, or

3) Coexistence, and that is to live along the side of their fellow non-Muslim neighbors like the Mudajer did for many generations.

For the Moriscos, of all the available options, coexistence would probably have been their best option. They tried to achieve coexistence as a mean of survival, but the state’s policy aforementioned and the pressure from the religious institutions, such as the Holy Office of Inquisition, caused their efforts to go to no avail.

Soon after the suppression of the 1568-1571 revolt of the Moriscos which synched in time with the marine battle of Lepanto, in which the Ottoman navy lost its supreme and ultimate control of the mediterranean to Spain, creating a power shift and a new balance in the region, the crown turned back inward to solve the Moriscos problem once and for all. The loss of the Ottomans in Lepanto opened a new window to the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean. The shores of North Africa were no longer protected and became more accessible; sentiments of rejection for the Moriscos were at their hight, and thus the expulsion proposal prevailed. Although expulsion since then had become inevitable, but it would take the Spanish authority few more decades to put it into action. An operation of such a massive size was far beyond the Spanish monarchy to achieve without foreign aid. Therefore, and with the help of the Vatican and other European nations, King Philip III became adamant that deportation was the safest and only solution for the preservation of the Spanish way of life. He issued the edicts of expulsion which effectively began in September of 1609, executed in October the same year and continued until the last official shipment in 1614.

This was only a cursory look at the historical context of the Moriscos crisis, and there is no doubt the dynamics which contributed to the crisis were far more complex than those presented here. But what was the condition of the Moriscos during this long period of time? What happened to them? And what caused their tragedy?

Today, what can we, as western Muslims, learn from their experience? In the rising ethnical and religious tension in the world, while living all over the earth in a culture of globalization, where traditional boundaries are no longer visible or protected, how can we avoid another odyssey from happening to the massive numbers of Muslims and non-Muslims alike?

The answer will be coming in part two.

Posted on October 27, 2009 | 08 Dhul-Qadah, 1430 (AH) at 10:20 pm under Books and Readings,

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A book that details the fall of Granada is ‘In the shade of the Pomegrante Tree” by Tariq Ali. It is a novel about a wealthy Moorish family and the experiences they went through during the fall of Granada. There are some parts of the book that are a bit inappropriate but overall its an emotional roller coaster
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Ali Montasir Al Kataani’s arabic book, “The Revival of Islam in Al Andalus” (انبعاث الإسلام بالأندلس).
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An Incomplete History: The Muslims of Spain Post 1492 in a Global Context and its Relevance to Muslims Today” this week, (google it, or go here for a blog version: historyofandalus.wordpress.com).
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Zaragoza Moorish history
The moorish occupation of Zaragoza lasted just over four centuries (714 - 1118) and like the rest of Moorish Spain it became difficult to discern an Aragones from a Moor. During its occupation Zaragoza retained its previous importance and even gained extra importance being responsible for the administration of the Modern day Communitat Valenciana, community of Valencia.
Whilst the later re conquering of Zaragoza by the Christian armies of Aragon, and subsequent destruction or obliteration of Moorish buildings, destroyed much of the rich heritage built up over four centuries there are still some remarkably well preserved buildings. Today these form the principal Morrish attractions in Zaragoza.
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Islam in Europe: A Changing Faith


Islam in Europe: A Changing Faith
Young Muslims are crafting a new brand of their religion reconciling traditional practices with the realities of life in the West 
BY NICHOLAS LE QUESNE 
There's standing room only in a converted warehouse in the decaying industrial hinterland north of central Paris. It's mid-October, just days after the first U.S. bombs fell on Afghanistan, and the French magazine La Médina — which serves as an outlet for the country's Muslim population — has organized a public meeting on the significance for Islam of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath.

The atmosphere is electric. The men are in jeans and sportswear, while most of the women wear scarves over their heads. With few exceptions, the audience is made up of North Africans in their mid-20s. On the podium, 39-year-old Swiss university professor Tariq Ramadan — whose grandfather founded Egypt's Islamic revival movement the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 — begins to speak. "Now more than ever we need to criticize some of our brothers," he tells the packed hall. "My dignity depends on saying, 'You're unjustified if you use the Koran to justify murder.'" The French establishment — with its traditional mistrust of religion — views Ramadan with suspicion, but tonight he sounds like the voice of reason.

Then a young woman steps up to the microphone. With her black hijab she could be from almost anywhere in the Muslim world, but her accent is unmistakable — it's pure northern Parisian: "It's urgent for Muslims today to do everything they can to make the truth about their religion understood." The crowd bursts into thunderous applause.

Although most media have focused on a hard-core fringe calling for armed struggle against America, the overwhelming majority of Europe's Muslims see their religion as a moderate one. A survey carried out by the Mori agency for Eastern Eye, Britain's biggest selling Asian newspaper, shows that 87% of the Muslims polled are loyal to Britain, even though 64% oppose the U.S.-led strikes against Afghanistan.

These people and thousands of others like them are crafting a new strand of Islam, one that aims to reconcile the basic tenets of the faith — such as social justice and submission to the will of God — with the realities of contemporary European life. Though this process has been under way for some time, the events of Sept. 11 and afterward have lent it new urgency.

For many of Europe's 12.5 million Muslims, now is the time to redefine Islam in the context of their identities as believers who were born and bred in Europe. The result is a kind of Euro-Islam, the traditional Koran-based religion with its prohibitions against alcohol and interest-bearing loans now indelibly marked by the "Western" values of tolerance, democracy and civil liberties. This new vision could well end up influencing the world these young Europeans' grandparents left behind.

For this new generation, Euro-Islam is not a zero sum game: it is possible to be Muslim and European at the same time. In fact, unlike that of their Christian neighbors, the religious faith of Europe's Muslims is getting stronger. A survey published by French newspaper Le Monde in October shows that people from Muslim backgrounds are praying more, attending mosques more often and observing the Ramadan fast more assiduously than they did in 1994, when the survey was last conducted. The increased devotion is particularly marked among those who have been to university. In Britain, more women are wearing the hijab today than 10 years ago.

Euro-Islam is a bridge between two cultures, providing young believers with a way of respecting inherited traditions while living in a different world. It also gives them the confidence to practice their religion more openly, unlike their parents or grandparents who thought their sojourn in Europe was temporary and so were content to express their faith in private. Their children view Europe as their home and see no reason not to worship more publicly.

During Ramadan, the holy month of fasting that ended last week, Ahmid — a Moroccan-born imam at an Islamic cultural center in Rome — was selling Korans and cassettes of Muslim preachers at his stall outside the central mosque. A practicing Muslim back in Morocco, Ahmid has become more devout since arriving in Italy 13 years ago. "The immigrant turns to religion for support," he says. "Muslims have always gone anywhere in the world and adapted to learn to live as they must — and let others live their lives."

As Ahmid suggests, the story of Islam in Europe is a story of immigration. During the Continent's reconstruction after World War II, Britain and France turned to their former colonies in South Asia and North Africa to fill their manpower shortages, while Germany opened its doors to "guest workers" from Turkey. Most of these guests never went home again, and their children were born and grew up as Europeans. Today, the Muslim communities in these three countries are the biggest in Europe: 5 million in France, 3.2 million in Germany and 2 million in Britain. These numbers have been augmented by more recent waves of immigration to countries like Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and the Scandinavian region.

But Islam itself is nothing new in Europe. After advancing as far as Tours in 732, the Arabs remained in Spain until 1492, when they were driven from Granada. Over those centuries they bequeathed the Spanish their distinctive pronunciation of the letter J as well as masterpieces of Moorish architecture. The Islamic scholars Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd reintroduced Greek philosophy to the West during the Middle Ages, while Arab mathematicians revolutionized science with the invention of algebra. And when the Ottoman armies pushed west through the Balkan peninsula in the 14th century, they established Muslim communities in Central Europe that still exist today.

In Sarajevo, the imams' calls to prayer from reconstructed mosques blend with the chimes of bells from Orthodox Christian medieval churches and 19th century cathedrals. "I have more in common with Bosnian Serbs than Muslims from Pakistan and Afghanistan," says former Bosnian Interior Minister Muhamad Besic. His words offer striking testimony of the strength of Islam's historic roots on the Continent, given that not 10 years ago his city was under siege from those same Bosnian Serbs. But they also speak of an assimilation that even war could not affect. What's different now is that for the first time in their 14-century history, Muslims are living as minorities in secular societies. Traditional Islamic theology divides the world into two zones: the dar al-Islam, or house of Islam, and the dar al-harb, or house of war. This world view assumes that Muslims will never be able to practice their religion properly in non-Muslim lands and so should not settle there. But second- and third-generation Muslims in Europe quickly discovered that this was a false opposition. Fresh ideas were needed, such as the dar ash-shahada, or house of testimony: a new concept referring to any place where Muslims can make their profession of faith and live according to the precepts of their religion.

Tariq Ramadan is one of the most prominent exponents of this new thinking. "As a Muslim I can be at home anywhere I'm safe and where the rule of law protects my freedom of conscience and my freedom to worship," he says. "In this new environment, my responsibility is to bear witness to the message of my faith."

European Muslims don't necessarily differ from other Muslims when it comes to the basic tenets of that faith, but according to Dilwar Hussain, a research fellow at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, they do have "greater flexibility, greater awareness of the wider society and more liberal attitudes." Witness the growing number of Muslim girls contacting the Rutgers Women's Health Foundation in the Netherlands for abortion advice.

Hussain says that Europe's liberal attitudes are forcing the faithful to reassess their own beliefs. "The younger Muslims are going back to the text and asking: 'What my parents used to do, is that really part of my faith or is that part of their cultural tradition?' Drawing that distinction between faith and culture is very important. You may find some things in the Islamic texts, and then the cultural setting can lead to a particular interpretation. When the cultural setting changes, those interpretations will naturally change." Says Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France: "We're forging our own way of practicing Islam, and it's going to be different from the way it's done in Morocco, Algeria or Saudi Arabia. Islam needs to free itself from imported customs."

For Yakob Mahi, 36, a Moroccan imam living in Belgium, adapting Islam to new environments has been central to the development of his faith. He cites the concept of Shari'a, the way of life ordained by God for mankind, which he says many countries have turned into a code of punishment — even though less than 1% of the Koran consists of penal rules. In Europe, Mahi says, "We can see Shari'a not as law, but as a path to be understood in its context. When we transform it into daily European life, we see that Shari'a doesn't mean cutting off the hand of a thief. Rather it's a spirit present in many things we enjoy in Europe: the principles of democracy, the rule of law, the freedoms of expression and association." That innovative interpretation makes Muslim law compatible with its Western secular counterparts. So Mahi advocates a doctrine of "spiritual citizenship" in which Muslims "respect the laws [of the secular state] but try to give a spiritual impulse to everything they do."

In Europe, Muslims must also confront social questions — such as euthanasia, abortion and sexuality — that are suppressed in many Islamic countries. Nowhere is this confrontation more obvious than in the assertive roles being claimed by women. After all, the 7th century doctrines of the Prophet Muhammad considerably improved their lot, forbidding the then common practice of female infanticide and making the education of girls a sacred duty. "It's not the religion that holds back women but the culture — and the men," says Fatma Amer, head of education and interfaith relations at the London Central Mosque. "It's up to the women to organize themselves and not accept everything their communities tell them they must do."

One area in which both women and men are asserting themselves more vigorously is marriage. In Britain, increasing numbers of young women are resisting arranged marriages to cousins back in Bangladesh or Pakistan. In France, too, young people are clashing with parents who always assumed their children would marry someone from their own village in Morocco or Algeria. "We want to choose the person we marry," says Fouad Imarraine, who runs the Tawhid Cultural Center in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. "It doesn't matter what color their skin is as long as we're of the same faith."

Imarraine describes how the attitudes of Europe's Muslims have changed. "When we went back to North Africa on holiday, we realized we had deeper ties in France," he says, sipping coffee in a café nestled at the foot of concrete tower blocks. "Very few of my generation made it to university and Islam provided us with a refuge from failure at school and feeling shut out of society. But there's now a younger generation using Islam as a way of establishing the universal values they have in common with those around them. Defining their own identity as Muslims is a way of interacting with the rest of society."

This generation has grown up thinking of Europe as home, even if it has often seemed inhospitable. Schoolgirls have been expelled for wearing the hijab in France, while in British Islamic communities like the one in Luton, Muslims are twice as likely to be unemployed as other townsfolk. But for this new generation, being Muslim and European means their faith has become a matter of individual choice rather than social constraint.
Younger Muslims are far more individualistic in the way they interpret the Koran, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any less devout," says Mustapha Oukbih, a 36-year-old journalist who lives and works in the Hague. The Dutch website Maghreb.nl, for example, has hosted chat rooms to discuss whether it's okay for Muslim newlyweds to have oral sex. "They want to decide for themselves how to live their lives," Oukbih says. This emphasis on personal choice is providing many Muslims with a new vision of politics, too.

"Strictly religious problems are becoming more marginal," says Hakim El Ghissassi, editor of France's La Médina, referring to the widespread availability of mosques and religious instruction. "Young people today are more concerned with resolving the social issues facing Muslims: employment, equality in the labor market, political representation and the way that history is taught in schools. Muslims are going to make their voices heard more and more on these issues. They're going to want to take part in government at the local, national and European level."

For the moment, though, Muslim political representation is small. With a Muslim population of 800,000, the Netherlands has seven Muslim M.P.s. Britain has only two, and France none. Yet people like Bassam Tibi, a professor of international relations at the University of Göttingen who coined the term Euro-Islam, insist that the integration of Europe's Muslims depends on the adoption of a form of Islam that embraces Western political values, such as pluralism, tolerance, the separation of church and state, democratic civil society and individual human rights. "The options for Muslims are unequivocal," says Tibi. "There is no middle way between Euro-Islam and a ghettoization of Muslim minorities."

In Britain, that view is shared by the writer and critic Ziauddin Sardar, who came to the country with his Pakistani parents as a child in the 1960s. "If there is a sociological change there will be a theological change as well," he says. "In Islam, law and ethics are the same thing. If you change the ethics, you change the law. There will be a new interpretation of Islam."

This new interpretation is taking shape in different places at different speeds. Although non-Muslims often view Islam as a monolithic bloc, the religion is characterized by its diversity. With over a billion believers scattered across every continent, as well as separate Shi'ite and Sunni traditions, the Muslim community (or ummah) has long been a philosophical construct rather than a demographic reality. That's true in Europe, where Muslims are divided by country of residence as much as by country of origin. "The problems Muslims are facing here are deeply influenced by the institutions of the countries where they live," says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a professor at Paris' School of Post-Graduate Studies in Social Science. "But the influence of democracy and religious tolerance is bringing about a meeting of minds."

And that influence could well spread to the Muslim world as a whole. For Zaki Badawi, chairman of the Imams and Mosques Council of Britain, Muslims in the West are helping to answer the question that has haunted Islam for the past century: how to reconcile tradition and modernity. "Islam, like any other society, finds modernity challenging," Badawi says. Although that challenge is felt more acutely in the developing world, intellectuals in those countries don't have the freedom to analyze the problem and find effective solutions. "The tension between Islam and modernity will be answered by thinkers in the West," Badawi says, "and transferred back to our native countries."

It would be symbolically and historically fitting if the next great reform of Islam came from the diaspora in the West. After all, the starting point of the Muslim calendar is not the year of Muhammad's birth but the day 1,379 years ago when the Prophet led his followers from his birthplace in Mecca to found a new community in Medina. "The very foundation of Islamic civilization was built on diaspora, on the move from Mecca to Medina," says British Muslim writer Sardar. "This is where the diaspora is very important: in creating a truly moderate tradition for the future." The new diaspora of Muslims in Europe already has that task in hand. 
With reporting by JEFF CHU/Birmingham, ABI DARUVALLA/Amsterdam, HELEN GIBSON/London, JAMES GRAFF/Brussels, JEFF ISRAELY/Rome, ANDREW PURVIS/Sarajevo and URSULA SAUTTER/Bonn
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Permanent ruse for an indefinite war
Abid Ullah Jan, MMN
Sunday 22 May 2005
Are there some peace-loving people still waiting for the US withdrawal and the end of wars and occupations? If there are, let it be known to everyone that their desire will remain a dream for as long as the most corrupt and tyrannical system of governance survives in the US and allied states.
Now that the lies about weapons of mass destruction have been officially admitted, and the situation in Afghanistan is far worse than it ever was under the Taliban, the single most important motivator that led the US into these adventures is being publicly acknowledged.
Before discussing the real motivators, let us look at the war lords' liberal mouth pices and see how they are trying to give us a different ruse for permanent war.
In its January 13, 2005 editorial, "Bulletin: No W.M.D. Found," the New York Times writes: "The 1,200 military men and women who were assigned to his search team are now fighting Iraqi insurgents. We hope they succeed. If they do not, large swaths of Iraq could become a no man's land, where terrorists will be free to work on W.M.D. projects and United Nations weapons inspectors cannot go to thwart them."
The question is where were the terrorists and insurgents before the US invasion? In the final analysis we will see how the New York Times ruse for the war leads to addressing the same objective as the chief terrorists have set for themselves.
The war lord, Thomas Friedman, also repeated the same mantra the same day in the New York Times under the title: "Ballots and Boycotts." He concluded: "we have a much greater chance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq by appealing to the self-interest of the Kurds and the Shiites to be magnanimous in victory, than we do of getting the fascist insurgents to be magnanimous in defeat."
So the task is now reduced to defeating "fascist insurgents." But are they just insurgents? Where were they before the US invaded Iraq on the basis of lies?
The day after the lies were officially admitted, the Washington Post was totally silent. Washington Time (Jan 13) was silent as well but to promote the permanent ruse, it published an article, "Stay the Course," by Congressman George Allen, who promoted the same ruse in these words:
"These attacks are being carried out by vicious terrorists who detest freedom and aim to push back not just the election, but to keep democratic elections from ever taking place in Iraq. Their ultimate goal and victory would be to return Iraq to a repressive state or an intolerant theocracy."
Los Angeles Times was also silent on January 13. However there was an article, The Truth Shall se you back," by Margaret Carlson which on the one hand admitted that "in the Bush administration, you lose your job not for lying but for telling the truth," but on the other habd favored the Iraq invasion and demanded more troops: "Bush gives those medals to people who keep their mouths shut, like L. Paul Bremer III, who got one for not saying until he retired that Bush hadn't sent enough troops to Iraq."
The real objective for the totalitarian nihilists' going to war was openly discussed by General Abizaid a few weeks before the US public acknowledgement of lies. Gen. John Abizaid, whom the Washington Post Editor, David Ignatius, could not pump any more than he did in his December 26, 2004 column, is like any of the doomed commanders in history – busy dreaming conquering the world and achieving the impossible for their masters.
For each Abizaid of the past there were many Ignatius to keep them reminding that they command "the most potent military force in history." However, all those potent forces melted like wax in their respective ages when they undertook "Long War" that Abizaid is keenly looking forward to keep fighting for decades.
Ignatius's description of Abizaid's field of action clearly shows the real motive and the target area for the 21st century crusades. Besides the title: "Achieving Real Victory Could Take Decades," the language used for such descriptions further smells of a new, indefinite crusade.
After spending some time in Abizaid's company, Ignatius describes the battlefield as "the jagged crescent of the Middle East, from Egypt to Pakistan" in a world where "if there is a modern Imperium Americanum, Abizaid is its field general.
No one denies that. The question, however, is about the real motives and the real enemy. David Ignatius asks: "For all of America's military might, the Long War that has begun in the Middle East poses some tough strategic questions. What is the nature of the enemy?" In the very next question he identifies the enemy: "What will victory look like, in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world?"
Although the war lords identify "Islamic" world as the enemy, but it is actually the Islam-less Muslim world, which is the target. The motive is to hold it from becoming Islamic in the real sense.
Despite occupying two countries for the last few years and killing around 150,000 people, including Americans, the terrorist in chief, General Abizaid, "believes that the Long War is only in its early stages." Imagine the advanced stages when the objective will be achieved with "modernization of the Islamic world" and its "accommodation with the [capitalist] global economy." (the Washington Post, December 26, 2004, page B01).
It shows the enemy was not Saddam, nor were the WMD a threat. Like Galloway, many are reminding the war lords that there was no Iraq connection to 9/11; there were no WMD; Saddam was not a threat and so on. Others are pleading naively to end the occupation and bring back the troops.
Terrorist minds have a different view and different real objectives. General Abizaid has been clearly telling that his forces are out there to crush those who "try to re-create what they imagine was the pure and perfect Islamic government of the era of the prophet Muhammad."
To the 21st century crusaders, invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan are just Iraq "the early stages" of a "long war" in the "loose network of like-minded individuals who use 21st century-technology to spread their vision of a 7th-century paradise."
Is it now clear enough for those who want their kids back from Iraq? It was not a war on WMD or Saddam or a mission for democracy and freedom in the first palce. It is a war on "7th century paradise."
Abizaid's historical analogies to Bolshevik leaders or revolutionary Europe in 1848 are totally misleading. Through the distorted lens of history, contemporary problems are presented in a way to justify the never ending wars. There is enormous difference between the 19th-century anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin, who wanted to use revolutionary violence to purge what he viewed as a corrupt order, and those who are working to pave the way for Muslims' living by Islam today.
If the revolutionary leaders in the Muslim world are against the corrupt order and tyrants like Islam Karimov, General Musharraf and the kins and sheikhs; if there is a change process underway, why does that bother the US? What is it trying to protect or impose?
Why is the US after the revolutionaries? Why does it want to "kill or capture them"? Is the corrupt order in the Muslim world somehow sustaining the modern Imperium Americanum?
What kind of modernization is this that has taken lives of more than 120,000 Iraqis so far?
We know that none of the Iraqi's went on a suicidal mission to kill fellow Iraqis before the arrival of modern day barbarians in Iraq. What made the Iraqis do so: their desire for a "7th century paradise" or their reaction to the 21st century tyranny?
All these 120,000 Iraqis were not "salafist Jihadists" or revolutionaries. If this is the count for a couple of years, what if the indefinite crusade continues for decades as envisaged by the war lords?
The new ruses are coming from the "liberal" mouth pieces of the war lords because there is no doubt remaining on the baselessness of earlier justifications for war. No one uttered a single word about denying Muslims the right to live by Islam at the time when the air in Washington was full of lies and everyone was busy in inventing more lies to somehow make the "initial stages" of the crusade possible. We didn't see Abizaid coming out, as we do now, to declare: "No need to lie. We are heading for a long war for 'modernization' of the modern day 'Bolsheviks'?"
The reason is that the war lords in the US wanted to launch the war and they cared less if they had to brazenly lie for that. Now that their earlier lies are exposed, they are clearly saying that the threat is the Muslims desire to live by Islam. They also add that it is not wise to leave the mess behind. In their view things will be in order when there is no aspiration among Muslims left to live by Islam.
There are two pertinent questions: Is it possible? And how long would it take? The answer to the first question is: absolutely not. The answer to the second question is that the war will continue till the war lords realize that their "modern Imperium Americanum" has slipped from their hands for ever.
The question that no one among the American war lords is considering is about the cost. They believe the proportion of 1,500 to 120,000 is worth defeating what Abizaid calls "the most despicable enemy I've ever seen."
Keeping in mind the early miscalculations about wining their ideological war, one can safely predict that the worst war of human history is unfolding before our eyes. Allowing the American totalitarians to finish their job amounts to granting them a license to wipe out, at least, one quarter of the human population.
There will never be anything like what the chief terrorist, General Abizaid, promises the world: "One day you'll wake up and there will be more food, more security, more stability." We have all these things now. What is missing is the lack of will on the part of the nihilists in Washington to let others live the way the have to live. Otherwise, the future generations would consider us worse than those who supported Nazis and other fascists in similar adventures.
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American Muslim History: A Chronological Observation


American Muslim History: A Chronological ObservationUnquestionably, Muslims have made an impact on the evolution of American society. Historically Muslims have made major contributions, e.g., humanities, the sciences, and art. They explored North America 300 years before the so-called "discovery" of the New World by Christopher Columbus. They used the Mississippi River as their access route to and from the continent's interior Here are a few glimpses of Muslim life in American history:
1178 A Chinese document known as the Sung Document records the voyage of Muslim sailors to a land known as Mu-Lan-Pi (America). Mention of this document is contained in the publication, The Khotan Amirs, 1933.
1310 Abu Bakari (Abu Bakar), a Muslim king of the Malian Empire, spearheads a series of sea voyages to the New World.
1312 African Muslims (Mandinga) arrive in the Gulf of Mexico for exploration of the American interior using the Mississippi River as their access route. These Muslim explorers were from Mali and other parts of West Africa.
1513 Piri Reis completes his first world map, including the Americas, after researching maps from all over the world. The practicality and artistry of his map surpassed any from his time or before.
1530 African slaves arrive in America. During the slave trade, more than 10 million Africans were uprooted from their homes and brought to American shores. Many of these slaves were from the Fulas, Fula Jallon, Fula Toro, and Massina as well as other areas of West Africa. These areas were governed from their capital, "Timbuctu." These slaves were sent to Mexico, Cuba, and South America. More than 30 percent of these 10 million slaves were Muslim. They became the backbone of the American economy.
1539 Estevanico of Azamor, a Muslim from Morocco, lands in Florida with the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527. Estevanico remained in America to become the first of three Americans to
cross this continent. At least two states owe their beginnings to this Muslim, Arizona and New Mexico.
1732 Ayyub ibn Sulaiman Jallon, a Muslim slave in Maryland, is set free by James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, and provided transportation to England. He arrived home (Boonda, Galumbo) from England in 1735.
1790 Moors from Spain are reported living in South Carolina and Florida.
1807 United States Congress prohibits the importation of slaves into America after Jan. 1, 1808. Despite suppression of the slave trade during the next 60 years, slavery reached its peak between 1840-1860. The last Slave ships to be confiscated by the federal government were Wildfire, Storm King, Williams, Erie, Echo, Cora, and Binita all of which violated the ban on importing slaves.
1807 Yarrow Mamout, an African Muslim slave, is set free in Washington, D.C., and later becomes one of the first shareholders of the second chartered bank in America, the Columbia bank. Yarrow may have lived to be more than 128 years old, the oldest person in American history. Two portraits of Yarrow done by well known artists are on public display. The first, painted by Charles W. Peale in 1819 was done
when Yarrow was 100 years old. It hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. A second portrait completed by James Simpson in 1828, almost a decade later, can be seen in the Peabody Room at the
Georgetown Public Library, Washington D.C.
1809 Al Hajj Umar ibn Sayyid is enslaved in Charleston after running away. In jail, he is visited by John Owen and taken to Bladen County and placed on the Owen plantation. John Owen later became
Governor of North Carolina. It has been reported that Umar lived to be 100 years old.
1828 Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori, a former prince from West Africa and now a slave on a Georgia plantation, is freed by the order of Secretary of State Henry Clay and President John Quincy Adams. He
was known to many during his lifetime as "The Prince of the Slaves." A drawing of him, done by Henry Inman, is displayed in the Library of Congress. His life has also been well-documented.
1839 Sayyid Sa'id, ruler of Oman, orders his ship The Sultana, to set sail for America on a trade mission. The Sultana touched port in New York, April 30, 1840. Although the voyage was not a commercial
success, it marks the point of successful friendly relations between the two countries that continue to this
day.
1856 The United States cavalry hire a Muslim by the name of Hajji Ali to experiment with raising camels in Arizona.
1865 The American Civil War ends. During the war, the "scorched earth" policy of the North destroyed churches, farms, schools, libraries, colleges, and a great deal of other property. The librarians at the University of Alabama managed to save one book from the debris of their library buildings. On the morning of April 4, when Federal troops reached the campus with orders to destroy the university, Andre
Deloffre, a modern language professor and custodian of the library, appealed to the commanding officer to spare one of the finest libraries in the South. The officer, being sympathetic, sent a courier to Gen.
Croxton at his headquarters in Tuscaloosa asking permission to save the Rotunda. The general's reply was no. The officer reportedly said, "I will save one volume as a memento of this occasion. The volume
selected was a rare copy of the Qur'an.
1870 The Reverend Norman, a Methodist missionary, converts to Islam.
1889 Edward W. Blyden, noted scholar and social activist, traveled throughout the eastern and southern parts of the United States proclaiming Islam. In a speech before the Colonization Society of Chicago Blyden told his audience that the reasons Africans choose Islam over Christianity is that, "the Qur'an protected the black man from self-depreciation in the presence of Arabs or Europeans.
1893 The American Islamic Propaganda Movement is founded by Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb. He is regarded as one of the earliest white American converts. In that same year on Sept. 20 and 21, M. A. Webb appeared at the First World Congress of Religions and delivered two lectures: "The Spirit of Islam," and "The Influence of Islam on Social Conditions."
1908 Muslim immigrants from the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc., arrive in North America. They are mainly Turks, Kurds, Albanians, and Arabs.
1913 Timothy Drew (Noble Drew Ali) establishes an organization in Newark, NJ , known as the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA). Drew Ali reportedly was commissioned by the Sultan of Morocco to teach Islam to Negroes in the United States. The MSTA is also responsible for many of today's African-American converts to Islam.
1915 Albanian Muslims build a Masjid in Maine and establish an Islamic association. By 1919, they had established another Masjid in Connecticut. Theirs was one of the first associations for Muslims in the
United States.
1920 The Red Crescent, a Muslim charity modeled after the International Red Cross, is established in
Detroit.
1921 A branch of the Ahmadiyya Movement is founded in Chicago by Dr. Mufti Muhammad Sadiq. This
movement converted many African-Americans to Islam.
1926 Duse Muhammad Ali, mentor of Marcus Garvey and the person who had a considerable impact
upon Garvey's movement, establishes an organization in Detroit known as the Universal Islamic Society.
Its motto was "One God, One Aim, One Destiny."
1926 Polish-speaking Tatars build a mosque in Brooklyn, NY, which is still in use.
1930 African American Muslims establish First Muslim Mosque in Piftsburg, Pennsylvania.
1933 The Nation of Islam (NOI), one of the most significant organizations in American Muslim history, is founded. It is responsible for converting a high percentage of African-Americans to Islam. It was also effective in highlighting American Christians' difficulties combating the effects of slavery and racism among African-Americans. The NOI's philosophy was introduced in the United States by Fard
Muhammad (Wallace Ford), a Muslim mystic who disappeared in 1933. The late, Elijah Mohammed, who succeeded Fard in 1933, built the organization into a strong ethnic movement advocating Islam as
way of life. Two of the most famous African-Americans, Muhammad Ali and Al Hajj Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X), were early adherents of this movement. Both later embraced the broader multiethnic
concepts of orthodox Islam.
1934 The Lebanese community of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, opens its Masjid.
1939 The Islamic Mission Society is founded in New York by Sheikh Dawood. It publishes a magazine entitled, "Muslim Sunrise".
1952 Muslims in the armed services sue the federal government to be allowed to identify themselves as Muslims. Until then Islam was not recognized as a legitimate religion.
1955 The State Street Masjid in New York City is established by Sheikh Dawood Ahmed Faisal. It is still in use today and represents a special point in the development of the American Muslim community. From this Masjid was born the Dar-ul-Islam movement.
1960 The NOI's University of Islam schools flourished and drew the attention of the American media. Coverage focused upon the Black Muslims' self-help programs for Blacks, but considered them a "threat"
to the white establishment.
1962 The Dar-ul-Islam movement, another important group among the African-American Muslim community, is born. Until its disappearance in 1982-1983, it made a serious impact upon the development
and practice of traditional Islam in America.
1962 The newspaper Muhammad Speaks is launched. It later becomes the largest minority weekly publication in the country and reached 800,000 readers at its peak. In subsequent years, it underwent
some name changes, and the NOI itself underwent various transformations. It has also been known as Bilalian News, The A.M. Journal and, currently The Muslim Journal.
1963 The Muslim Students Association (MSA) is established as an organization to aid foreign Muslim students attending schools in the United States. MSA now has more than 100 branches nationwide. In the
1970's it gave birth to the Islamic Medical Association (IMA), the Association of Muslim Social Scientist (AMSS), and the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (AMSE).
1965 AI Hajj Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X) is assassinated in New York. He was one of the most outstanding Muslims in American history as well as a dedicated fighter for justice and equality for
African-Americans and other oppressed people.
1968 The Hanafi Movement is founded by Hamas Abdul Khaalis. The Hanafi Madhab Center was established in New York but later moved to Washington, D.C. This movement had a membership of more than 1000 in the United States. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, a famous basketball player, is one of the Muslims who first came into contact with Islam through this movement. In 1977, Khaalis and some of his followers seized control of three District of Columbia buildings, holding hostages for more than 30 hours. One man was killed. Khaalis is now incarcerated in Washington, D.C., and is serving a sentence of 41 to 120 years. This movement marks a challenging period in American Muslim history.
1971 The Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers is established.
1972 The Association of Muslim Social Scientists, is launched.
1975 Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, dies and is succeeded by his son Warith Deen Mohammed, who has been credited with moving the NOI toward the broader universal concepts of Islam.
He is now regarded as one of the leading Muslim spokesmen in the United States.
1981 The first American Islamic library is established in Plainfield, Indiana.
1982 The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is established in Plainfield, IN. ISNA is now an umbrella organization for many active Islamic groups seeking to further the cause of Islam in the United
States.
1986 Dr. Isma'il R. a]-Faruqi and his wife are murdered in their home outside Philadelphia. Dr. and Mrs. Faruqi are the authors of The Cultural Atlas of Islam as well as many other books and research papers. Dr. Faruqi is the founder of AMSS and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, which is located in Northern Virginia. This truly remarkable Muslim family is responsible for some of the most constructive programs to promote Islam in the United States.
1990 Muslims hold the first solidarity conference called "Muslims Against Apartheid." This was the first conference of its kind in support of Muslims for the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The conference was organized by the American Muslim Council.
1991 Imam Siraj Wahaj offers an invocation (opening prayer) to the United States House of Representatives. He was the first Muslim to do so.
1991 The Muslim Members in the Military (MMM) organization hold their first "Unity in Uniform" conference. The conference took place at Boiling Air force Base in Washington, D.C. According to the
United States Department of Defense, there are more than 5000 Muslims in uniform on active duty in the military. However, there are no Muslim Chaplains on active duty in any branch of service.
1991 Charles Bilal, Kountze, Texas, becomes the nation's first Muslim mayor in an American city.
1992 Imam Warith Deen Mohammed gives the invocation in the Senate.
Information Resources:
1. African Presence in Early America by Ivan Van Sertima, 1987
2. Deeper Roots by Abdullah Hakim Quick, 1990
3. Arab America Today (A Demographic Profile of Arab Americans) by
John Zogby, 1990
4. A Survey of North American Muslims by El Tigani A. Abugideiri,
June 1977
5. A Century of Islam in America by Yyvone Y. Haddad, 1986
6. Ethnic Distribution of American Muslims and Selected
Socio-Economic Characteristics by Arif Ghaytir, 1984
7. The Demography of Islamic Nations by john Weeks, 1988
8. Islam in the United States: Review of Sources by Dr. Sulayman
s. Nyang, 1988
9. Demographic Consequences of Minority Consciousness- An Analysis
by Salaha M. Abedin, 1980
10. World Population Data Sheet Population Reference Bureau, Inc.
Washington, D.C. 1990, Statistical Abstract of the United States,
U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1990
11. Muslim Peoples (A World Ethnographic Survey) Edited by
Richard V. Weeks, 1984, Vol. 11
12. The 1991 Almanac 44th Edition, by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991
13. The Islamic Society of North America Directory of Islamic
Centers, Schools, Masjids, and MSA Chapters, 1989 Revised Edition
14. The Islamic Struggle in America, Hijrah Magazine, Oct./Nov. 1985
15. The Seven Muslim Slaves by Abdul Hakim Muhammad, 1983
16. Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alford, 1977
17. Nature Knows No Color Line by J.A. Rogers, 1952
18. African American Muslims in Antebellum America by Allen Austin,
1984
19. The Arab World Published by the Arab-American Press, 1945
20. The United States and Sultanate of Oman Produced by Sultan
Qaboos Center, The Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C. 1990
21. The University of Alabama, A Pictorial History by Suzanne Rau
Wolfe
22. History of the First Muslim Mosque of Pittsburg, Pennslavania
by Jameela A. Hakim, 1989
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